


Shall We Get Into It Again?

by InkandOwl



Category: IT (1990), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Codependency, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie doesn't understand that he's horny, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Richie doesn't understand that he's in love, in a good way, post miniseries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27510757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkandOwl/pseuds/InkandOwl
Summary: “I’m talking about love that makes you feel wild. Like you could run and scream with them. Love that makes you feel like ananimal.” She says the last part with a wide flash of her eyes over the frames of her sunglasses.Mike laughs harder and Ben even bites his lip against a smile when Eddie inhales sharply behind him. It’s all very sleepover like, and they’re giggling like school children talking about necking out on the kissing bridge, but Richie’s heart stutters in his chest.“Real love is a monster, Richie.” Bev shakes her finger at him, “One day you’re gonna meet someone that you want to tear apart with your teeth and they’re gonna let you.”-Richie stops fighting against the feelings inside of him he thinks are terrifying
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 11
Kudos: 218





	Shall We Get Into It Again?

“I thought you were going to be ugly when you grew up.” Beverly says carefully, leafing through the glossy pages of the JC Penney wedding catalogue. 

Richie looks up from the selection of cakes he’s been doodling over with a pen and blinks, owlish and slow behind his glasses. The ones he used to wear all the time, and then never, and now sometimes because his eyes get dry and he doesn’t care about appearing Hollywood Acceptable™ anymore. Eddie stiffens up in the seat next to him and for a wild, highly disturbed moment, Richie thinks she’s talking about him. 

“I think Richie’s handsome.” Eddie says, careful and soft, blonde eyebrows pulled together in concern. 

“He is.” Beverly looks up finally and grins, “That’s why I said ‘ _I thought_. Your hair was so orange back then, look at how lovely it is now.” She holds up the catalogue and there’s a spread advertising a new comedy sitcom with Richie front and center, dressed like a lawyer of all things. 

There’s a silence where Richie has to fully ruminate on the fact that he even _worked_ on that show, and that he’s actually looking at himself, and Eddie breaks through it with all the elegance and grace of a Kaspbrak unleashed, choking out a laugh. He looks at Richie then, eyes crinkled in mirth when he devolves into a full giggling fit that shouldn’t look so goddamn cute on a thirty eight year old man, and yet—

Richie’s shoulders slump down easily and he finds himself grinning when he says, “Why, Ms. Marsh, do you want an autograph?” 

“Please.” Bev slides the magazine over and Richie gets right to drawing on his face with the pen, while Eddie clutches his stomach and demands, 

“Richie, what are you _wearing_?” 

“Alright, yuck it up, Edster. Need I remind you that you’ve been dressing like a stuffy suit since kindergarten?” 

“That’s because I _am_ ” Eddie preens, wiggling his shoulders and Richie watches the way his golden brown eyelashes fan over the tops of his cheeks when he closes his eyes, the handsome slope of his nose turned up in faux haughtiness. It’s unbelievable that Eddie grew up to look like this. To act like this, to speak like this, to still light up Richie’s world with his soft mouth and sharp words. There is something to be said for codependency when it’s in the shape of the Losers, two time demon space clown survivors— therapists wet dream. Richie buries his nose in the side of Eddie’s face, kisses him over and over and over again on his jaw and his cheek and his ear and Eddie laughs. Richie can feel his smile underneath his lips— the pull of muscle in his cheeks, and he’s obsessed with the way Eddie chases after his happiness now. Desperate almost with how carelessly he throws himself into the arms of laughter. 

Richie grips Eddie’s cheeks between his hands, looks over that awful, gorgeous face. He wants to pull Eddie’s bottom lip between his teeth and make Eddie yelp. Make him whimper and whine and then lick into his mouth. 

So Richie’s thoughts might be starting to saunter over the lines of simply codependent. 

He growls at Eddie instead and lets his face go, settling back into his chair. 

Beverly looks between them, eyes coming to a halt on Richie for far too long before she makes a decisive humming noise and goes back to planning her dream wedding to the Mr. Ben Hanscom.

“Do you guys wanna see RoboCop 2?” Richie says up at the ceiling so that he doesn’t have to look at Beverly’s knowing face anymore. 

“There’s a second one?” Eddie pipes up. 

Bill opts out of meeting them at the theater, but his wife, Audra brings bags of jujyfruits tucked into her cleavage and doles them out when she settles in next to Richie. He’s fascinated by the way she passes the neatly sealed plastic bags over to Richie and then Eddie and then a folded stack of napkins, mesmerized by the smooth curve of her breasts and the way they just— hide candy apparently. 

“What else are you keeping in there?” Richie asks, and he’s honest to god not trying to make a pass at one of his best friends wives. 

Audra grins wide and adjusts the front of her dress, “Tozier, I’m a married woman.” 

He blushes but he leans his shoulder into hers. Audra is beautiful and vibrant, smart as a whip and both too good, and just perfect for Bill. “You wouldn’t be the first girl I stole from Denbrough.” 

“That’s not even true, Richie.” Eddie says before Audra can even react, leaning forward so that Richie can see the harsh reflection of the movie screen in the lenses of his glasses. There’s nothing playing yet, just the still screen warning of talking in the theater. “Everyone loved Bill, they were falling over themselves to be with him.” 

He has his moody pout on that Richie hasn’t seen in a good long while and it pulls at something sharp and shaped like jealousy in his chest, “Like _you_?” He jabs childishly and immediately regrets it by the way Eddie’s eyes go wide and frightened. 

Yet again, Richie’s pushed to hard, exposed to much. Left Eddie vulnerable and undone with no plan to cover him up. “Projection is ugly, dear.” Audra, the absolute blessing, pats Richie’s arm, winking at him before she returns to her perfectly placed frown. “Besides—” She adds, “Had I met all of you at the same time, I think Eddie would’ve been my first choice.” 

And isn’t that something they can both agree on? Richie sputters out fake righteous indignation while Eddie carefully tucks a piece of candy between his lips. A lemon one, his favorite.

RoboCop 2 is bananas, and Richie is immediately obsessed with it. Also with the way that Eddie seems deep in concentration and then wails with helpless laughter, so reminiscent of when they were children. They’re watching a gang of feral little leaguers destroy an electronics store when one round cheeked kid wrinkles his nose at RoboCops meltdown and comments, “Shit! He’s fucked up!” 

Richie crows with laughter and swats Eddie in the chest, “That kid looks exactly like you did!” He declares and Eddie laughs around a fistful of candy, “Oh my god, do you have a son?” 

“Shut up.” Eddie rolls his eyes, “I didn’t look like that.” 

“Bullshit.” Richie says and someone hisses at them to be quiet. “That was you, say the line. Say it.” 

Eddie looks him over, rolling a jujyfruit around on his tongue in a way that is delightfully distracting, “Shut. Up.” He presses his finger to Richie’s lips. 

They walking out to the parking lot while Richie shows Audra a polaroid of all the Losers back in the sixties, looking for backup when he says, “Didn’t that kid look like Eds? That’s how he talked too, if you would believe it.” 

“You swear?” Audra walks with an air of regality even in her casual movie going attire and a few people whisper when they pass. 

Eddie shrugs his bomber jacket over his shoulders, ears coloring, “Not like I used too, it’s— I’m a professional now.” 

Richie snorts, “Say ‘fuck’ Eds. Say, ‘He’s fucked up’.” 

“You are an infant.” Eddie shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, blonde hair tossed about prettily in the wind and Richie thinks about tackling him. Maybe there is something to say about his maturity. 

“Hey!” A man walking past with his family, pulls up next to Richie then steps backwards, “Aren’t you Richie Tozier?” He points boldly in Richie’s face. 

“I— am!” He decides, unable to think up anything clever enough on the spot. 

“Oh man, I used to listen to your radio show at the warehouse all the time! You had the best mixed tape segment, I was happy to see you make it onto TV.” He’s a friendly guy at least, and Richie can appreciate talking to someone with a genuine love for what he does. Richie shakes his hand, “Can I get an autograph.” 

“Absolutely!’ Richie digs through his pockets, only to have a pen shoved at him by Eddie with a flourish. 

The guy laughs, holds out a receipt from an oil change, “What was that thing you used to say, instead? Apple-solutely?” 

It _is_ something he used to say on air, but now it curls something warm and familiar in his stomach, and the realization of it makes his face burn. Richie writes a personalized note because this fan is a pretty great one and sends him off with a joke and a companionable shoulder grip, and hopes upon hope that Eddie says nothing. 

No such luck. “Apple-solutely.” He says it slow, really rolls the sounds around in his mouth. “I believe—”

“Yeah, I know.” 

“I used to say that.” When Richie looks over, Eddie is looking down at his feet, smiling softly. “You remembered me. A little bit.” It’s so careful and fond and it shakes that wild monster inside of Richie awake. Make him jump, it tells him. Make him laugh and moan, make him run, make him howl. 

Richie feels insane with it. 

He shoves his hands into his pockets and tries not to scream. 

-

It all sort of blisters to a head the first time they decide to go swimming. Not because Richie can’t control his hormones— he managed to make it nearly to forty without having a meltdown at the sight of bare skin on a pretty boy after all. It’s that Eddie is laughing so uncontrollably in the California sun, crowded around a stereo with Mike. Bev uses her straw to alternate drinking out of Eddie’s cup, then Mike’s, looking like a Baywatch dream in her new one piece swimsuit and massive sunglasses. 

And yet, Richie can’t bring himself to look away from the knobby turn of Eddie’s knees, the thin line of his shin bones where he keeps his feet crossed at the ankle. The way his mother used to sit in church back in the day, like a real lady. His hair is like fine spun gold, tossed wildly in the breeze after drying without the careful help of a blowdryer. Richie drops onto the pavers at Eddie’s feet and reaches up to tug at that hair, “I didn’t realize you had so many waves.” He says, then presses his mouth into Eddie’s knee so he doesn’t say any more. 

Beverly, the spectacularly buzzed angel, pouts and tells him, “We need to rinse this out so the chlorine doesn’t turn your hair green.” 

Richie’s eyes flick up to Eddie’s and he reaches down to pet his fingers through Richie’s own rust colored mop, taking a moment to rub his thumb over the crease of his jaw. Richie feels like a dog, it’s amazing. 

“His hair is naturally blonde though.” Mike says, looking everything like a librarian that thought he could fool everyone by trading in his cardigan for a hawaiian shirt. “He would have to swim practically every day and Richie would have to have a lot of copper in his pool. You have copper in your pool?” 

Richie shrugs, “I have a guy that comes and cleans it every Wednesday, it looks like he puts stuff in it.” He makes a shaking gesture to get his point across. 

“Maybe he’s slowly poisoning you, Rich.” Eddie taps his thumb against the side of Richie’s nose, “How do you not know what people are putting in your pool?” Richie doesn’t answer him, just turns his face and catches Eddie’s thumb between his teeth. 

“You two are cute.” Beverly says, offhanded. 

A comment that would make Richie shrink away before. Sputter to defend himself, or pick on Eddie just to right the balance. “Who’s cute?” Ben asks, sitting down on the lounge chair next to Bev. 

“You!” Bev kisses him quickly on the mouth and Richie makes an exaggerated retching noise while Eddie coos affectionately. 

“Haven’t you been married like six times, Richie? Let them have their pre-wedded bliss.” Mike reaches out and taps him with his particularly hideous sandal. “You know how it is.” 

Richie shakes his head. 

It’s instinct really— self preservation, and he picks at the hair on Eddie’s knee until he yelps quietly and knocks his leg into Richie’s face. “It was four times.” Richie corrects him, “And it wasn’t like that— this.” He nods up to Ben and Bev, who look like they're a little ashamed now that they somehow displayed their love, right here in the presence of Richie’s messy love life, and that’s not what Richie wants at all. He reaches up between them to put their hands together, “It wasn’t real like this.” He pats their knuckles fondly. 

“Rich, that’s really sweet and kind of sad.” Ben looks caught between grinning and frowning. 

“You look like a Bee Gees reject, Benjo.” Richie tells him to rectify the mood, and gets another Eddie knee to the face. 

Ben just smiles then, all nice white teeth and it makes Richie feel good. 

“You’ve never been in love?” Mike frowns. 

“I love you guys.” Richie leans back on his palms, needing a little distance between himself and this conversation. He thought they had all silently agreed not to talk about the way they were in the between times. 

“That’s different though.” Beverly taps one of her brightly painted red nails against her lips. Richie can hear the ghosts of the women of Derry then, _Only trashy women wear their nails red. Ones that want the wrong sort of attention_. It didn’t matter that Bev was eleven, in coservative dresses and saddle shoes, nails and face unpainted. It didn’t matter because none of it actually mattered. They were going to say and think whatever they wanted no matter what costume you were stitched into. “We’re talking about _love_.” 

“Oh, you mean writing poetry about january embers?” Richie throws his head back to shake out his imaginary wild locks. 

Mike laughs behind his hand and Beverly rolls her eyes, “That’s a start.” She snaps. “I’m talking about love that makes you feel wild. Like you could run and scream with them. Love that makes you feel like an _animal_.” She says the last part with a wide flash of her eyes over the frames of her sunglasses. 

Mike laughs harder and Ben even bites his lip against a smile when Eddie inhales sharply behind him. It’s all very sleepover like, and they’re giggling like school children talking about necking out on the kissing bridge, but Richie’s heart stutters in his chest. 

“Real love is a monster, Richie.” Bev shakes her finger at him, “One day you’re gonna meet someone that you want to tear apart with your teeth and they’re gonna let you.” 

Richie reaches up and plucks Beverly’s glasses off her face, placing them on his own nose so that he has a place to hide.

They’re putting away dishes in the kitchen later, Ben, Mike and Eddie gone to the convenient store to get ice cream, when Bev inspects a tumbler glass for a moment before saying, “You didn’t realize it, did you?” 

“Hmm?” 

There’s an entire portion of the dish mat that’s coming unravelled at the seam, and Eddie’s going to hate it, Richie realizes. He’ll have to get a new one. “What I said earlier about love. You didn’t realize you love him.” 

He could play dumb, tell her he doesn’t know who or what she’s talking about. Instead he shrugs and says, “I always thought I was a monster for the things I used to think about him. The way he made me feel, all the things I wanted to do.”

“You are.” Bev yawns, the day of sun finally settling in, “He’s a monster too though, we all are. The good kind though, the kind it takes to kill the fucked up ones, like Pennywise.” 

Richie grins, fond of the carefully crafted Beverly Marsh cursing in his presence, “Are we like that kids book? We’re the wild things, all living on an island acting a fool?” 

“Oh, I love that book!” Beverly presses her hands to her heart. “Yeah, we’re definitely the wild things.” 

“To the wild things!” 

“To the wild things!” 

They’re spinning around the kitchen when the others come back and ask what they’re doing. Beverly tells them that they’re wild things having a romp. Mike and Ben pass Beverly between them in a waltz and Eddie shakes a gallon of ice cream before shoving it in the freezer. He lets Richie trap him against the cool metal of the fridge, resting a hand on Richie’s side. His fingers curl, not hard but a threat of it. A reminder that his claws are right there and Richie leans down to kiss his temple. “You know, I think that book is supposed to be about childhood fear and anger.” Eddie looks up at him under his lashes. 

“Listen here you little buzzkill—” Richie growls, close to Eddie’s face and Eddie snickers quietly between them. “You’re the kid with the crown.” 

Eddie beams up at him, “So royalty?” 

“A real prince!” Richie hefts him up into his arms, stomping into the living room, and the other Losers follow them happily, beside themselves with Richie’s over the top display. They’ve never shied away from public displays of affection with each other, or seeing it acted out in their couplings, so it’s unsurprising that they spread themselves around the living room while Richie dumps Eddie on the couch and practically lays on top of him. It’s nice— being a part of something that encourages open affection. Wild things. “King of the angry, foul mouthed kids of the world.” 

“Richie.” Eddie says his name like it’s the entirety of the statement. Nothing else to add. 

“Say the line.” 

“Richie!” 

“What line?” Mike spreads his arms across the back of the couch next to theirs. 

“Eddie’s baby clone was in RoboCop 2, cussing up a storm.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, “Enough with the f— movie, my god!” 

Richie howls in exasperation, “You almost did it, Eds! Say ‘fuck’, _please_?” 

He’s got Eddie’s wrists gripped in his hands, pushed into the couch cushions above his head, settling in between Eddie’s thighs, and Richie wants to set up camp here forever. Eddie’s eyes roam over Richie’s face, flaying him open while the others encourage him to swear. “Fuck. You.” Eddie says it quietly, precise, with a sly grin curving at his lips and the rest of them cheer loudly, right there in Richie’s living room. 

Richie grabs Eddie’s jaw in his hand, presses Eddie’s lower lip open with his thumb and slots their mouths together. It’s a sloppy, rough kiss. He bites at Eddie’s lips, licks into mouth. Kisses, and kisses, and kisses hard enough that his jaw is going to start aching, his mustache scraping Eddie’s skin raw. 

He whimpers when he pulls away, frustrated and needy, practically coming apart at the seams like his shitty dish mat. “I want to tear you apart with my teeth.” He says and Eddie’s breath hitches. 

“I would let you.” 

“Eddie Kaspbrak.” Mike says in low, dramatic admonishment, “So reckless.” 

“It’s that Richard Tozier.” Ben shakes his head, “He’s a bad influence.” 

“You guys can stay, help yourselves to— whatever.” Richie grips Eddie around the middle, hauls him off the couch, “See you in the morning.” 

There’s a chorus of “Goodnight!” 

Eddie tells him “This isn’t subtle, they’re going to know what we’re doing.” But he’s restless, pawing at Richie when he manhandles him onto the bed, like it would kill him to stop moving for more than a second. 

“What are we doing then?” Richie shoves Eddie’s shirt up underneath his armpits, spreads his hands wide over the expanse of Eddie’s chest. He wants to feel all of him at once, to be able to cover Eddie’s entire body with his own. “You’re shaking like a leaf, darling, are you scared?” 

Eddie shakes his head, “Excited. Nervous.” He groans when Richie ducks down and kisses over his chest and his stomach, “I want it so bad. Want _you_.”

“You’ve never done this before.” Richie reminds him. Reminds himself. Eddie’s already scowling, poised to start telling Richie off for treating him with kid gloves and not like the actual adult with adult need that he is, so Richie kisses him quiet, “Stop over thinking it.” 

That gets him an annoyed noise against his lips when he dives back in, and Richie lets Eddie shove him over, “I’m not _overthinking it_.” Eddie tells him, hair a wild mess, glasses long gone skittering off the side of the bed, shirt still rumpled up around his torso. “I want it to be good.” He admits, and Richie is struck by the frantic, searching look on his face, “I want to make you feel good, and I want it to be— I want it to be perfect.” 

Richie sits up, carefully pulls his own shirt off his head and hums, “You want, you want, you want.” He repeats and Eddie laughs quietly, “Honey—” He runs his hands up Eddie’s thighs, to the hem of his fashionable little summer shorts, “Babydoll, darling, look at me. I’ve never felt this good in my life, and we’re not even doing anything right now. I get to look at you like _this_ , and I can touch your skin, finally.” He reaches forward, runs his hands down Eddie’s sides to make a point and mutters out a ‘get this shit off’ while Eddie laughs, “I love you so much. I’ve never loved anyone except you, not like this, and we could spend all night just sucking face and cuddling and that would be insane to me. I would lose my goddamn mind with happiness.” 

Eddie drags his eyes over him, and Richie could get used to the open longing on someone’s face while they’re looking at his half naked body, “Can you— can you hold me?” When Richie opens his arms he slots himself into them immediately. The feeling of their skin, sun warmed and pressed together is already giving him a high and Eddie mouths at his collarbone, whiny and restless. 

“You gnawin’ on me, Buck?” Richie closes his eyes, buries his face in Eddie’s hair and strokes down his spine. 

He’s so fidgety, Richie’s afraid he’s going to roll them both off the bed while Eddie grips him tighter and closer, “I want more,” He groans, “Something’s wrong with me, I feel like i’m going crazy.” Eddie looks genuinely frustrated when he pulls back, “I feel like I’m not touching you enough, but i’m literally touching you, and I— and I—” Eddie smashes his face into Richie’s chest like it’s a pillow and lets out a muffled scream. 

Richie nearly cries with laughter, trapping Eddie in a tight hug while he thrashes. This entire time he thought he was some insatiable werewolf, and here’s Eddie, ready to tear the bedroom to ribbons with his feral need. What a perfect pack they make. “Oh, my little beast,” He sings and pops open the button on Eddie’s shorts, “Let’s get you off before I have to perform an exorcism.” 

“Richie, that’s not— _oh!_ —” 

Once Richie’s got his hand gripped over the top of Eddie’s soaking briefs, it’s like his brain’s been shut off. He laughs against Eddie’s lips and he kisses him back into the pillow, stroking over the curve of Eddie’s dick. He’s so hard it seems painful, and it’s equal parts flattering and worrying for his blood pressure, and Richie pushes his underwear down to his knees with his shorts. “You’re so good, baby.” Richie says, kissing over Eddie’s slack mouth and his handsome jawline, “So wet for me, look at you.” 

There’s precome drooling over Richie’s hand and onto Eddie’s stomach, and Richie presses his thumb over his leaking head, smearing it over the sensitive skin. Eddie cries out brokenly, gripping hard at Richie’s shoulders. “That feels so good.” He whimpers pushing his hips up into Richie’s grip. “Why does this feel so good?” 

He’s talking absolute nonsense, and to have the usually sharp witted Eddie Kaspbrak a mess in his hands is in and of itself a reward. Richie pulls away only to work Eddie’s pants the rest of the way off, flinging them dramatically into the corner then pushing his own pants down. Eddie leans up on his elbows, a little dazed and glassy eyed and Richie is _fond_. “Because, _we’re in love_.” Richie reminds him and Eddie beams up at him emphatically. _Cute, cute, cute_! “Did we kiss when we were young?” 

He asks Eddie while he’s kissing his way back up his body, trying to strain his memory for who they were past eleven, twelve, sixteen, seventeen— Eddie pushes his fingers gently along Richie’s temple, eyes soft and a little hazy. “When we were in high school.” Eddie pulls Richie against him then, “Not like this, we were— we were just kids, you were playing—“

“You were singing The Crystals.” Richie remembers, but his memory of Eddie then is overlapped with the Eddie he has right here. Lines traced over and over again until the papers become a tangle of pictures. “So I whispered I love you, he said that he loved me too, and then he kissed me.” He sings and Eddie laughs. 

“You kissed me on the corner of my mouth, I think you meant to get my cheek but— I thought about it all the time, it made my stomach hurt with how much I liked it.” 

It breaks Richie’s heart. 

Eddie laughs again then but it’s mostly insecure, “I remember being so mad, I thought— his lips are so soft! Richie Trashmouth Tozier, of all people.”

“How dare I!” Richie gasps, just to make Eddie laugh again. Just to feel him smile against his lips, “That terrible Richie Tozier, stealing kisses from the good boys of Derry. Terrible influence, the scoundrel.” 

“My mother warned me about you.” Eddie tells him solemnly, and he wraps his arms around Richie’s lower back, pulling their bodies together and letting out a sigh like he’s content with this— just feeling their skin and their sweat and their hair all tangled together. It’s all very primal and unkempt for who Eddie outwardly acted as. “I want—” Eddie chews his lip, but he doesn’t look shy. He looks like he’s trying to remember how to spell a word, or what the name of a song is, “What we were doing before. More though.” 

“You want me to make you feel good?” 

Eddie hums against his lips, “Yes.” He says decisively, “Whatever you want, I want. Can we have sex?” 

Richie stretches across him, digging through the drawer beside his bed, “What do you think we’re doing?” 

“All the way.” 

He nearly knocks himself out on the open dresser and Richie drops a bottle of lube next to him on the sheets, “Zero to a hundred, Eds! Shit.” 

“It’ll feel good though! Right?” Even with his shoulders tucked up a bit against the pillows and his bottom lip pulled between his teeth to hide a shy, pleased smile, Eddie looks like every sinful fantasy Richie’s ever had. 

And this is the truth of it. Eddie with the big ideas. Eddie chanting ‘ _Do it, Richie! Do it, do it!_ ’ Eddie as the devil on his shoulder while the world at large took in the whole picture and said, ‘ _Oh, that Eddie Kaspbrak is just a doll. Tozier on the other hand?_ ’ 

“Eds—”

“I’m almost forty, Richie, I swear to— Don’t patronize me.” He sticks his finger severely in Richie’s face who bites it. 

“Right.” Richie sits up, spreads Eddie’s legs open, “Just so we’re clear, you want me to fuck you, yes?” 

That gets him. Eddie turns red and tries to pull his knees together against Richie’s hands. Richie quirks an eyebrow at him. “Don’t give me that look.” Eddie reprimands him, “I _do_ want that, I just don’t like how you said it.” 

He pouts and Richie hums, tossing the bottle of lube between his hands, “Sorry, darling, you know me, I’m an animal.” He drips lube right over Eddie’s opening and can’t help but laugh when he makes a surprised noise and knees him in the side, “I’m gonna make love to you.” He drags two of his fingers swiftly over the tightly furled muscle between his legs and promptly stops Eddie from having any sort of argument for Richie. “Gonna open you up real good— take you nice and slow—” His first finger slips in easily and Richie lets out a surprised huff of a laugh when Eddie bears down gently, “Oh, you do this to yourself, don’t you?” 

He nips at Eddie’s neck so that he can’t turn in on himself. Can’t tuck himself away from Richie and from this wild need of theirs. “You don’t have to treat me like I'm fragile.” Eddie grits out his defiance through his stuttered breathing and the choked off moans he’s holding back from Richie. 

“You’re not fragile.” Richie reminds him, coating more lube over himself “Fingers aren’t the same though.” 

Richie lines himself up with Eddie, rubs the head of his cock over his wet hole while Eddie rolls his eyes, “Is this your way of stroking your ego?”

He could dig around for a condom, but Richie hasn’t been sleeping with anyone recently— not with the Losers back in his life, filling in the void of lovelessness, and Eddie in the room down the hall since Derry. He collapses forward, catching himself on his elbow next to Eddie’s face, his other hand still teasing where they’re nearly joined, “I don’t want my ego stroked right now.” 

“Bullshit.” 

All his spitting and hissing is delightful and Richie grins, “I want you, that’s it. Just this.” And Eddie’s not fragile, but when Richie sinks into him a few inches he lets out a wounded little gasp and digs his fingers into Richie’s shoulders. “You okay, baby? Want me to stop?” 

Eddie shakes his head against the pillow, “Just— give me a moment.” He presses his eyes closed, nose scrunched up in concentration, and Richie can feel him focus on relaxing, “So big.” 

He barks out a laugh, “Eds, my ego!” 

The laugh that bubbles out of Eddie escapes him despite his best efforts and it’s beautiful. Wild, wild, wild, and Richie bends down to kiss him as wildly as he feels. “Richie?” Eddie’s voice is quiet, just for him when Richie bottoms out slowly between kisses. His eyes are warm and brown, just as young and vibrant as ever with his crows feet and his laugh lines. With that permanent little furrow fixed between his eyebrows. 

Richie runs his hand gently up Eddie’s side, over his hip, content to sit for a moment in recognition of finally being inside of him. Of finally recognizing that he’s in love and that it’s with his best friend and they’re alive and they’re _here_. “Hello, darling.” He kisses the corner of Eddie’s mouth, soft as he can. 

Eddie sighs, his breath fanning out over Richie’s face, “You’re so sweet.” His smile curls up in the corner, and he reaches up to brush his thumb under Richie’s eyes, smearing tears there. 

“That’s embarrassing.” Richie admits, because outside of a wild BDSM session in the seventies, he has never cried in bed. 

“It’s not.” 

“Well—” Eddie laughs, bright and a little strangled when Richie rolls his hips slowly, and then he starts to grow restless again, “What do you need?” 

“Faster.” Eddie fidgets, pulling at Richie’s back and his shoulders and his hips, like he doesn’t know where to put his hands. “You can go harder.” 

Richie sits up, sniffs when he makes a show of wiping his eyes on the back of his wrists, “You try to make love to a guy and he just wants you to fuck him through the mattress—

“Richie—!”

“—I get it, I’m just a sex toy for you—”

Eddie makes a terribly frustrated noise and bites out, “Ugh, I bet Mike is still up, he would—” 

“Oh, you little shit,” Richie grabs Eddie’s hips tight, thrusts into him hard enough that the rest of that thought dies immediately on a moan. It’s a cheap play at Richie’s strange, childhood jealousy of Mike and Eddie’s closeness and it _works_. He holds onto Eddie’s waist, sits up so that he can fuck into him quick enough that Eddie has to grab at the sheets. 

“Richie—” Eddie whimpers when Richie shoves his knees up towards his chest, “So jealous.” 

The teasing effect is lost in the way his eyes flutter closed and his kiss bitten lips curve open around a needy moan. Richie wants to remind him that he’s untrainable, undomesticated, thoroughly outside the confines of acting like an appropriate human being just moments from chewing up the furniture. He’s overwhelmed though. Overwhelmed at the sounds Eddie makes, the way he looks in the low light, the way he feels— tight and hot and wet and everywhere, pulse jumping underneath his heaving chest and his punctuated ribs; cracked and then healed. 

There isn’t a person in the world that’s seen this side of Eddie, undone without a shred of disguise, not ever. It’s always been Richie who dug his hands into the untamed parts of him and said, ‘ _Eddie, yell louder! Get meaner, get wilder! Eds, you can run, just run!_ ’

And it was always Eddie who could place something gentle in his own heart and say, ‘ _Richie, can’t you feel how much love you have inside of you?_ ’ 

It wells up fiercely inside of Richie and he buries his face in Eddie’s neck to hide the embarrassing swell of tears that starts up again. He’s never gotten emotional like this about sex— in fact, he always thought it was a bit dramatic when people talked about crying during. Eddie wraps an arm around Richie’s back, buries his other hand in Richie’s hair and scratches at his sweaty scalp, “Are you okay, sweetheart?” Richie makes a noise of affirmation but it just comes out strangled and Eddie huffs out a quiet laugh, “Come on, let’s move.” 

He pushes Richie away and the feeling of cold air on his sweat soaked skin makes him shiver. He lets Eddie roll him over, situate him so that he’s sitting up against the headboard, legs splayed in front of him like a puppet with the strings cut. Eddie climbs into Richie’s lap, reaches between his legs so that he can sink back down on Richie’s cock with a satisfied moan. He doesn’t ride him hard and fast like he’s chasing an orgasm, just rolls his hips in slow, easy circles and loops his arms around Richie’s neck so that he can press against him. 

Maybe if they had started this when they were younger— jumped up little twenty year old creatures— maybe then they would be having godless, break the bed type of sex. As it were, they’re both on the cusp of forty and Eddie wraps a blanket around their waists like they’re cuddling and kisses him deep and slow. “I love you.” He says, rubbing the tip of his nose over Richie’s mustache and laughing. 

“So the exorcism worked?” Richie runs his hands down Eddie’s back, tracing the curve of his spine. Eddie just nods, puts his hands on Richie’s chest for leverage so he can grind down a little harder. 

Richie’s fairly positive he’s just openly fawning at Eddie when Eddie asks him, “Seriously, are you okay?” 

“I am.” Richie admits, kissing over Eddie’s collarbone, “I’ve never done it like this before. Been in love like this. You’re beautiful, let me keep you.” He feels a little nonsensical, reaching down to take Eddie’s cock into his hand and stroke him slowly in time to the way he rocks in Richie’s lap, filter fucked off entirely when he rambles, “We can just stay like this forever, I’ll keep you in bed all day, until we’re old and grey with broken dicks.”

“Terrible.” Eddie mutters quietly. 

“Let me drag you to the altar, baby, fifth time’s a charm. You can take my name, I’ll take your name, hell, we can make up a whole new one. You want kids? We can have twenty of them, we can start trying right now—”

“Richie, behave.” Eddie’s voice is clipped as he picks up the speed of his hips, simultaneously trying to thrust up into Richie’s grip and fuck himself down on his cock, “God, you’re so— is it getting _bigger_?” 

It’s a hilarious sort of outrage and the reality is that Eddie is right on the edge and feeling particularly sensitive, but Richie chews the inside of his cheek and says, “Yeah, definitely, just for you.” He strokes Eddie faster, rubbing his thumb over his leaking heading and slicking him up in his hand, “You wanna come for me, baby?” 

It’s like a carefully crafted group of sleeper words and Eddie screws his eyes shut, fingers digging into Richie’s shoulders hard when he comes with a choked off whimper, bottom lip falling from between his teeth when he gasps and tries to regulate his breathing. It’s the most beautiful thing Richie’s ever seen and it puts him against his own orgasm, and he crushes Eddie to his chest when he comes inside of him. 

He ends up kissing Eddie’s sternum softly, over and over and over again until Eddie starts squirming in his grip and complains about Richie’s mustache rubbing his skin raw. “This is messy.” He says quietly, climbing a little wobbly off of Richie’s lap. 

“When you’re doing it right, yes.” Richie watches him slide from the bed with shaky legs, “Look at you, like a baby deer.” 

Eddie lets out a frustrated cry and Richie laughs while he carefully picks his way across the room to the bathroom. Richie feels bone deep sated in a way he’s never felt after sex. His body doesn’t have that restless ache for once, the feral monster inside of him content and curled comfortably right behind his steadily beating heart. He can’t even bring himself to open his eyes when Eddie runs a warm washcloth over his skin and taps his cheek with his thumb, “You need to take your contacts out.” 

“They’re overnights.” Richie mumbles. 

Eddie makes a noise like he doesn’t believe him, “You should give your eyes a break though.” 

“I spent my whole youth looking like a dweeb in those glasses, and now you’re trying to get me back into them?” Richie grabs Eddie’s arm and pulls him down on top of him. 

“I like your glasses.” Eddie says, quiet and a little startled in his own honesty. 

Richie rubs his hand over Eddie’s shoulder where he’s splayed across his chest, “You do?” 

He nods his head against Richie’s collarbone, “They look handsome on you. You look handsome.” Eddie props himself up to look down on him and kisses him, “Can I tell you something?” 

“Like a secret?” Richie asks conspiratorially, knocking their foreheads together. 

“Mhmm.” Eddie tucks himself tighter against Richie, “It never scared me that I liked men, that I was— gay.” He says carefully, “It scared me that I would be alone, but— Sometimes, I would let myself think about it. Having a boyfriend, or partner— having a husband.” He smiles softly, like this has been a secret with himself for so long and now he’s a school kid sharing his fairy tales, “When I thought about it, it would be someone so funny and kind. He would be adventurous and ridiculous and he would love me so much it would make me a little ridiculous too, and he would be—” Eddie takes a shaky breath, voice caught up with emotion, “He would be so handsome.” 

“And you got me.” Richie tries for self deprecating and throws out a wobbly grin. 

“Dreams do come true.” Eddie says, not a hint of teasing and Richie coughs out a distressed ‘ohmygod’ when tears spring back into his eyes. Eddie laughs and settles in next to him, curling the blanket around them, “I love you, Richie Tozier.” 

“Eds—” He squeaks out.

Eddie laughs louder, “Shit—” he taps Richie’s chest, “He’s fucked up!” 

It’s a hideous tangle of laughter and sobbing when Richie grits out, “You said the line!” 

“Are you happy now?” 

Richie scrubs his hands over his face, collects himself in a few deep breaths and gathers what little strength he has left to heft the sheets up and roll Eddie into a tight cocoon with him, “I’m happy.” He kisses his scrunched up face, “I’m- como se dice- fucked up?” 

Eddie laughs and kisses the underside of Richie’s chin, curling against him with a yawn. They might be satisfied now, filling in the hungry spaces of their hearts, but they still press their bodies tighter together than before, a little desperate and a little bruising, even when they’re falling asleep, and Richie wonders if they’ll be able to shift their bones. He stretches instead, drapes his arms around Eddie and settles in.


End file.
